


Hero is a Four Letter Word

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, M/M, Mutual Pining, Shiro (Voltron) Has PTSD - Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 09:59:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8528755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Shance week, Hogwarts AU taking place in Shiro's 7th year/Lance's 6th.Shiro, Death Eater Prisoner turned reluctant Hero, is back after the Battle of Hogwarts to retake his seventh year. It should be a simple thing but the weight of the war, and of lies told, sits heavy on him.Lance is a bright spot.





	1. Pining

“You're doing it again.” Keith announced, exasperation heavy in his voice. Shiro blinked, startled from his thoughts, and turned to look at his friend. Keith was looking at his Advanced Charms book, his meter long essay for the end of month paper already half filled (unlike Shiro's very bare parchment but in his defense they'd gotten the essay 3 hours ago), brow furrowed. His tie was undone, green and silver fabric hanging loosely around his neck, and there was a smudge of ink under his eye. Keith was the picture of hardworking Hogwarts excellence.

There was nothing about him to indicate what he was talking about or, even, that he'd been looking at Shiro at all.

“What am I doing?”

“Staring at that Hufflepuff. Again.” Keith flipped a page in his book, frowned, then scribbled something in the margins.

Shiro’s eyes drifted, involuntarily, to the library table tucked back in a far corner, right in front of the large window that looked out at the lake.

There were three people at the table, two Ravenclaws and a Hufflepuff, all sixth years. Their heads were bent towards each other and no less than a dozen books were open and overlapping in front of them on the table. They all looked completely entranced in whatever they were doing, whispering heatedly and gesturing wildly.

But every so often one of them would laugh and usually it was *him*, blue eyes bright and lips parted into a wide slightly crooked grin. He was Lance McClain, that Hufflepuff as Keith had dubbed him in spite of Shiro correcting him time and again, and yes, Shiro was staring. He stared a lot, couldn't make himself not do it no matter how many times his best friend called him out for doing it. Lance was loud and smart and laughed often even when no one else was, always seemed to be in detention or held after class yet was one of the top students in his year. He was also the Hufflepuff team seeker now and considered one of the best broom riders the school had ever seen, but Shiro had seen him out in the pitch in the waning sunlight many times, running drills all alone, seemingly not satisfied with being ‘one of the best’. A lot of people rolled their eyes and cracked jokes at Lance's expense but just as many seemed to hover around him, drawn in.

He was a constant bright spot in the sometimes gloomy castle. Even now it was like the hazy orange light of the fall sun, setting already, was stretching out to pool just around him, making him shine.

And Shiro was little more than a moth(and an increasingly overly dramatic one at that), just as hopeless pulled in as anyone else. But he wasn't going to give Keith the satisfaction of saying that outloud. Ever.

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

The noise Keith made was one of pure, unrestrained, unadulterated disgust. “You are literally staring at him right now.”

Shiro flushed, embarrassed and yet unwilling to admit that Keith was absolutely right about him. As usual. “You aren't even looking at me.”

Keith did finally look up, violet eyes flat. “You were staring. You're always staring and it's gross, Shiro, literally nauseating.”

Shiro’s eyebrows jumped up. He knew Keith found him a little frustrating and didn't understand his interest in Lance, and Shiro had never seen fit to explain, but gross was a new descriptor. And nauseating was just mean.

“Just go talk to him and put me out of your misery.” Keith continued, undeterred by the offended look on his face.

Lance's laughter rang out on the library, loud and clear like the ringing of a bell, earning him a sharp look from Madam Pince and annoyed ones from the other students. Lance’s face went red as his eyes widened; he looked like he'd just remembered there were other people around. He sank low in his seat while his friends, Pidge and Hunk, snickered.

“Merlin help me.” Keith sighed, pinched the bridge of his nose. “Shiro, do you even...you're a hero. There's going to be history books with passages all about you one day.”

Shiro frowned hard. “Keith-”

“You were held captive for months and survived- no, you came back, fought in the final battle, helped lead, and...made a difference. Other people would have wanted to hide, would have been too scared to even try to fight, but you did and you won. You lost your fucking arm and kept fighting anyway.”

“Keith-”

“You're the top in our class, best Chaser in years, everyone loves you. You could have literally anyone in this school you want.”

“Keith!” He hissed, real hand curling at his side and phantom hand tingling.

“But you won't tell one stupid try hard sixth year that you think he's cute.” Keith hissed back, eyes flashing. “You didn't even know who he was a year ago and now you spend all your free time doodling ‘Takashi McClain’ in all your books and making puppy eyes at him. It. Is. Gross.”

“...I have never written that anywhere.”

Keith huffed then turned away from him. “Whatever. Just tell him. Or don't. But stop all the weird staring.”

Shiro made a face but didn't say anything. He didn't know how to explain to Keith that he didn't want someone who saw him like Keith had described, that all the people who threw themselves at him just made his stomach turn. Because he wasn't a hero, not really. Not like other people who'd done far more in the last fight with the Dark Lord. He was...a fraud, really. People talked about how he'd lead his unit, never faltering or backing down, but he'd just been following the orders he'd been given. He'd just been leading his fellow students into a war zone.

They talked about how when Dementors had come and scattered his unit that he'd stood tall, even after a Death Eater had blown his arm apart. No one talked about how he'd fallen to his knees and all the memories of being a Death Eater Prisoner had come back and he'd been ready to just...give up. He would have happily welcomes the Dementors Kiss with open arms if it could just stop the cold and the neverending nightmares that came for him at night.

And when they talked about the patronous that saved the day, a huge silvery lion that had stood over him, they talked about it like it had been him and not a skinny fifth year Hufflepuff with a shaking hand and determined blue eyes who'd summoned it. And that that same fifth year had used a cauterizing spell to keep him from bleeding out, had helped him to his feet, and then slipped away when Keith appeared out of the chaos looking for him. No one talked about how adrenaline and sheer stupidity had been what kept Shiro going.

And no matter how many times Shiro tried to correct people no one really listened and by the time he'd been recovered enough to give a real report the Ministry had decided blood loss and shock was playing with his head. The headmistress had delicately suggested he leave the issue alone. That people needed the story as it was more than they needed his version of the truth.

That it was important that people had something to believe in, to look up to, after all the death and pain. They needed heroes and that was something bigger than just him.

So that was the story. The Death Eater prisoner turned Hero, a feel good story told alongside the one of the Boy-Who-Lived,and Lance got no credit at all. Not even Keith knew what had really happened.

Shiro couldn't look Lance in the eye without feeling ashamed of himself and speaking to him was just out of the question. What was he supposed to say? ‘Thanks for saving me, sorry I never noticed you before but now thinking about you is the only thing that keeps the nightmares from eating me from the inside out, hope that's not weird’?

Or, on the bad days ‘Who the hell asked you to save me anyway?’

Or ‘You have the most amazing eyes I've ever seen’?

Maybe-

“Still doing it.”

Shiro glared at Keith then, smiling slyly, asked: “How is Allura doing today? I saw you two talking at lunch didn't I?”

Keith's ears went pink. “Shut up and work on your essay.”

\---

“Do you have to drool over him like that?” Pidge asked testily. Lance shrugged, not bothered to look away from where Shiro was saying something to a blushing Keith. “I don't see how you can still like him after everything. It's been forever and he's still taking credit for what you did.”

Lance shrugged again. “I got to save my hero. That's better than getting my face in the paper.”

Pidge rolled her eyes and muttered what sounded a lot like “dumbass” under her breath. 


	2. Hero/Villain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro has a nightmare and that leads him to running into Lance late at night. One man's coward is another man's hero it seems.

The nightmare is a familiar one, the most constant of all of them. He's on the ground, staring at the space his arm used to occupy, eyes wide but vision dimming. Everything below the elbow was gone and what was left was a shattered pulpy mess of jagged bone and blood and other things no one should ever see of their own body. He wants to move his fingers, to push himself back up, and his brain and body don't understand why he can't. 

He didn't even know what spell had hit him. He had ideas about what could do this kind of damage, the ‘student’ part of his brain is working and cataloging, turning it into a problem to solve instead of the horror it is. There had been a wave of cold, a painful prickling as his arm froze not just over but through and then the breaking. It was, he acknowledged dizzily, a creative use of a spell to transfigure something into ice.

And then the pain hits and he's screaming, hunching in on himself as blood and tears and snot pour out of him and wailing because it hurts so badly, like he's on fire, being clawed at, and frozen through all at once, every nerve in his arm, even the ones no longer there, howling in pain. He can feel the part that's gone, feel the hurt all the way down to fingers that no longer exist and even though he knows that can't be right his intact hand fails, tries to grip his injured arm and cradle it to his chest.

There's only air.

And yet it is not the worst pain he's ever been in. No, that comes next when he realizes the Dementors are sliding closer, reaching for him, pulling him into a cold place where there is no hope. No escape. No joy, no light, no warmth, just a bone cracking cold and a feeling that nothing could ever possibly begin to go right again. 

He remembers everything between one breath and the next; the Death Eaters who stormed his home, how they’d subdued him and Matt near instantly (for all Shiro was supposed to be an excellent dueler and caster, for all that he was supposed to take after his hero Auror father, who’d taken on Death Eaters in the first war and was an actual hero, and had bragged about not being scared of the Dark Lord returning, he’d been on his knees screaming as pain danced along his nerves and his body twisted and jerked before he even fully realized what was happening)   
Months spent in a cramped foul smelling room that was more like a closet, often lulled to sleep by the sound of Matt’s screaming and sobbing. Being dragged out for the Death Eaters to practice their curses on while they laughed and mocked, force feed healing draughts, and then having the cycle repeat.

He remembered escaping, leaving Matt behind because his friend couldn’t stand let alone run. And he knows, somewhere deep in the dream, that that’s not what happened. They escaped together, Matt draped over his back. But the dream isn’t about what happened. It’s about what hurts and what hurts is that he’d thought about it leaving Matt behind. He’d looked down on the person who’d been his friend almost since birth, beaten and bruised and so so weak and he’d wanted to leave because this might be his only chance. Because he didn’t think he could survive another day. Because he was terrified of what would happen if they failed.

He closes his eyes and welcome the end because surely it is better than this, remembering and feeling it all at once, the pain biting in and throbbing along with the pulsing of his heart. 

In the real world that was when Lance stepped in and rescued him. In his dream that doesn’t happen. In his dream it just...keeps going. Terrible and endless darkness like the empty sockets of the Dementor’s eyes. Pain and memories, no one to save him and no relief from the Dementor either. 

He didn’t wake up screaming. He had trained himself too well when he’d been with the Death Eaters and screaming had been a big ‘I’m awake, torture me’ signal. He knew just what to do once the numb paralysis of sleep and the choking terror receded, having done it so many times before. He threw on his robe and slippers then left the tower, waving at the tired image of the Fat Lady before shuffling towards the kitchens. He wasn’t sneaking out and so he didn’t worry about being spotted; he had permission to do this when he needed to. 

Hero perks.

A house elf greeted him almost as soon as he entered the kitchens and popped off to get him his dreamless sleep tea. It’s a very diluted version of the potion, made from those who need it more often than was safe to take at full strength. People like him who had more than the occasional night terror. 

He was sitting at a table, staring at his hands, when the sound of the door swinging open made him look up in surprise; in all his late night trips he’d never seen anyone else in the kitchens. Other students weren’t allowed out at night and teachers could just summon house elves if they required something.

And of course the first time he saw someone else it was Lance, wearing a fuzzy blue bathrobe with cat ears on the hood and matching fuzzy blue cat-head slippers. He stared at Shiro like he’d grown a second head, eyes wide and startled as his hood slid back off of his head, and if Shiro hadn’t been looking at him the same way it would have been adorable. 

Instead he was sort of...scared. And embarrassed to be seen by someone without the phantom limb charm he usually had cast on himself, to replace his missing arm. Instead there was just an empty sleeve and now he was looking at it and Lance was looking too and his face was unreadable and

Shiro was not prepared for this 

They’d talked all of once since the Battle of Hogwarts. He’d come to apologize, to promise Lance that he was going to make people understand what really happened, but the Hufflepuff had just shrugged and told him it was fine. The Headmistress had already talked to him and he understood that Shiro made for a better hero for people to believe in than him.

Shiro hadn’t been able to say anything in response because it was just...so wrong. Lance was the actual hero and people should know that. He deserved that. 

But he hadn’t protested. Hadn’t gone and demanded people stop dismissing him as ‘confused by his injury and shock’. He’d just nodded and walked away. Left it at that. Accepted it and learned to bury how he really felt down deep while he gave interviews he hated (Missing for 5 months, returns to successfully battle the Dark Lord.) to reporters he despised and let people think he was more than he was. 

He had no idea what to say to Lance. Had thought about it a million times and nothing was ever good enough. And now here they were, staring each other down, a blanket of tension in the air. He wondered if Lance hated him, resented him, and if that was why he was staring at him like that. He wouldn’t have been able to blame him. Shiro was...awful.

“Hey, Shiro.” Lance said finally, eyes darting to the side. “Um.”

“Master Lance!” A house elf, different from the one who always got Shiro his tea, popped into the space between them. They were smiling broadly, huge ears flapping in apparent delight. “Would you like your usual?” 

“Uhhhh. Maybe. We don’t call it that in front of other people?” Lance looked around helplessly, cheeks turning red. Shiro smiled a little, tension in the air lessening some in the face of Lance’s embarrassment, and tilted his head to the side. 

“You sneak into the kitchens enough to have a ‘usual’?” 

“Hey,” Lance huffed, blush creeping up to the tips of his ears. “I’m not the only one in here, am I? So how about-”

“Your dreamless tea is ready!” Synthy, the house elf who always attended to him, proclaimed as she and the mug appeared on the table before him along with a sandwich. “Please to be eating before you take your tea this time.” 

He agreed and even took a bite under her watchful eye, knowing she wouldn’t leave until he did. When she did go, waving off his thanks, he glanced back to find that Lance had crept closer and was look at him like he was a particularly interesting puzzle. 

“Dreamless tea?” Lance asked as he perched onto a stool across from him. “How often do you need that stuff that they have you taking it in your tea? ...and you do not have to answer that, it’s not my business I don’t even know what I asked. Sorry.” 

“Ah.” Shiro looked down at the murky green-tinted contents. No one else knew about the tea but he felt like...like he owed it to Lance to answer. “I have. Dreams. Bad ones. A lot.” 

“Oh. I did too. Right after...over the summer. It’s better now.” There was surprise in Lance’s voice but also sympathy. Shiro nodded; he wasn’t surprised. He was far from under the illusion that he was the only person who’d walked away effected. He just didn’t think he had a right to complain when other people had it worse. “...You never talked about nightmares or anything in any of those interviews you did.” 

Shiro looked up in shock, mouth all but falling open. “You read those things? Why?”  He was fairly certain he’d never been more embarrassed in his life; if the ground had opened up and swallowed him whole he could have been grateful for it. He hadn’t wanted anything to do with any of that stuff to begin with but reporters had been hounding his friends. Hounding Matt and the Holts and he’d hoped giving them what they wanted would help. 

The actual articles, fluffy things all about the boy who was taken but came back to fight and lead, were dumb. And gross. And basically giant stupid lies and why the fuck would Lance even read them? 

“Why not?” Lance was turning even more red now, looking down at his hands hard. “I mean. Reading about the school’s heroes is fun.”

Shiro stared at Lance, trying to read his face for the joke or mockery that must have been there. When he didn’t find it he could only blink dumbly. “I’m not a hero. I haven’t done anything to deserve any of that...stuff.” 

If anything he was the exact opposite of a hero. A coward who’d taken credit for something he didn’t deserve to take credit for, who let people idolize him, who’d almost selfishly left his best friend behind to save his own skin, who lied to everyone constantly… There was a word for people like that and it wasn’t hero. 

Villain maybe, or at least well on the way to a halfway decent origin story.

Lance’s brow furrowed. “What? Of course you have.” 

Shiro was half tempted to ask if Lance had taken any blows to the head lately because if that wasn’t the case then he couldn’t imagine why he was saying stuff like that when he knew the truth. How could he say something like that with a completely straight face? More than that, a completely earnest expression, like he wholeheartedly believed it. 

“Like what?”

“Um, I don’t know, getting kidnapped, escaping from the Death Eaters, and saving Matt Holt?”

“Supposedly.” Shiro said, smiling down at his sandwich bitterly. “Supposedly I escaped. I can’t really remember anything about it; for all I know the Death Eaters let me go and I’m some sort of sleeper agent and you shouldn’t have bothered sav-”

He stopped, eyes widening as he realized what he was saying. Lance’s expression flickered from curious to stricken to appalled in rapid succession before settling on ‘worried’. Shiro breathed in and shook his head, forcing a smile he didn’t feel. What the hell was he doing, rambling to someone he barely knew like that. He didn’t even talk to Keith about this sort thing, didn’t talk to anyone about it, and while Lance wasn’t just anyone (not in Shiro’s head anyway) this was…not casual nighttime conversation.    


“Forget that. It’s late and I am…” He sighed, pulling his tea closer. “My point was I’m not hero. You should know that better than anyone.” 

  
Lance frowned at him, eyes soft and searching. Shiro suddenly felt exposed, like the younger teen could somehow see right through him to all of the things Shiro had filed away in the ‘never ever talk about’ part of his brain. That was, unfortunately, already letting way too much out.    


He was going to blame the dreamless sleep potion. …that he hadn’t taken yet.    


“So um, the thing is. Well.” Lance said halting, rubbing at the back of his neck and looking every where but at Shiro. “Uh. I’m Muggleborn? And my parents aren’t from Europe and I kind of had to figure everything out myself because they were…anyway. I had some problems getting on the train the first year, basically embarrassed the hell out of myself.”   


Shiro frowned, unsure of where this story was going but nodded along anyway to show he was listening.    


“And when I got on the train I found some corner to sit in and be mortified but there were these other kids. Older, ‘purebloods’, who’d seen me faceplant into the wrong pillar and…they were being not so nice. The usual stupid junk. Called me a mudblood, which was…new. And kind of devastating since I thought I was coming to this amazing school to do magic, not have a bunch of little jackasses get in my face.” Lance rolled his eyes and looked almost amused but Shiro found he doubted the expression was genuine.    


“And then an older boy, a Gryffindor, came and told them to get lost.” Lance tilted his head to the side, grinning widely. “You probably don’t even remember, you were just passing through and it was…a minute. Maybe two, and then you were back on your way to wherever, but it was…a big deal to me.”    


Shiro blinked then shrugged helplessly, something like guilt settling in his stomach. “I don’t remember.” He felt like he should. Wished he did but, honestly, if he had a galleon for ever asshole pureblood he’d caught bullying someone who didn’t meet their ‘standards’ he’d…have a lot of money. “I’m sorry.”    


“Don’t worry about it, whether or not you remember isn’t the point.” Lance said, smile dimming slightly. “The point is I was starting to think I didn’t belong at Hogwarts, all within the first fifteen minutes on the train, and you stood up for me when other people just went past and didn’t say a word. And I’ve seen you stand up for other people and…yeah. So. You’re sort of my hero. …which sounds cheesier than I meant it to when I say it outloud.”

Shiro didn’t know what to say to that, couldn’t fathom that something he couldn’t remember doing all those years ago, something he’d just done because that was what you were supposed to do, had meant so much to someone. 

That he’d, apparently, meant something to Lance all this time. 

“Anyway,” Lance said, looking past him. “My basket is ready and I don’t want to get busted out past curfew. So. Um. We’ll talk some other time?” 

“Yeah.” Shiro said. “We will.” 

Lance’s smile as he jogged over to the house elf to collect a, frankly huge, covered wicker basket was blinding. 


	3. Insecurity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A shorty. Insecure Shiro is insecure.

 

‘Just ask him out to Hogsmeade or something’ Was what Keith had said.

‘Or perhaps start with a broom ride or walk.’ Had been Allura’s gentle suggestion. Of course he’d been too busy being mortified that Allura knew about his ‘crush’ (obsession, according to Keith) to pay much attention to her actual words. And even more horrified when she very calmly informed him that everyone knew. Everyone.

It was Matt, in a letter that dripped with amusement and teasing, who’d suggested he go about it the good old fashioned way, as far as Hogwarts went: asking Lance to sit with him during the Halloween Feast. Usually students sat with the other students in their house but during holidays and special occasions they would mix and mingle and the Halloween Feast was the first big event of the year. It wasn’t at all uncommon to see new couples making their ‘first appearance’, sitting side by side, at the feast or for interested parties to ask the person they were interested in to sit with them.

But it also wasn’t unusual for friends to sit together which meant that if Lance wasn’t interested Shiro could play it off as just a friendly request. That was something he couldn’t fake if he asked Lance down to Hogsmeade or to go on a walk with him. Which was good because in spite of Keith insisting that Lance stared constantly Shiro just...wasn’t sure. He knew Keith wouldn’t steer him wrong on purpose, no matter how frustrated he was by him, but his friend didn’t know Lance very well and didn’t know about everything that laid between the two of them. What Keith saw as interested starring could be something else.

Couldn’t it?

He and Lance had been talking more, which was to say at all, in the wake of their late night encounter. So far it had just been about basic things, classes and Quidditch and books they’d read recently. About Lance’s family and how he was the only wizard in his family ever. Sometimes even about Shiro’s family; the Shirogane’s were an old Japanese wizarding family and their history and influence stretched far. Shiro didn’t talk about them often (ever) but Lance’s interest was less in power and what Shiro could ‘do’ with it, and more the history and difference between Japanese and British magic.

Those were subjects Shiro didn’t mind getting into.

He even had two books, one on the intersection of Japanese tradition and the magically community as well as ‘Japanese Magical Creatures Revealed’, that he’d had his father send before he’d truly realized what he was doing. Now they were sitting in his trunk, taking up space. Sometimes he took them out just so he could stare at them and wonder what the hell he’d been thinking. So they’d hung out a little (or...okay, nearly every day for at least a few hours in the library) and Lance seemed to enjoy his company and laughed at his jokes and listened to everything he had to say eagerly and thought he was great even though he knew the truth about him and

He was getting worse.

He was really starting to fall for Lance, not just as the person who’d saved him but as the funny, smart, genuinely sweet guy he was now spending a lot of time with. Keith said they were basically dating already and that was all well and good but Shiro didn’t see how that was possible.

He didn’t understand how Lance seemed to accept everything so easily. How he could still look at Shiro with those beautiful blue eyes and have nothing but humor and interest in them when Shiro so often looked at himself, at his scars, at the stump where his arm once was, at his body that was still smaller (withered) even a year later and felt nothing but disgust.

Even now, walking across the library to meet Lance he was floored by the easy smile that was sent his way, by the enthusiastic wave.

How could Lance really not be resentful at all?

How did someone like him even exist?

How could someone so good be interested in him? Because he’d stood up for him one on the train? Surely that wasn’t enough, not when Shiro was a shadow of his former self. Twisted and scarred, prone to night terrors and dark moods like him. (of course Lance didn’t know about those. No one knew. Shiro fought so hard to not let anyone know about the hopeless thoughts that took hold of him sometimes.) Lance could have anyone. He could-

“You’re coming to the feast right?” Lance asked abruptly, looking up from his potions book to peer at Shiro through lowered lashes. Shiro’s thoughts derailed like an out of control train, leaving him with nothing but wideeyes and an open mouth. Was this...was this going where he thought it might be? There was no way- “Shiro?”

“I. Uh. Yeah. Yeah.” He felt his face heating up. “Of course.”

“Okay. Good.” Lance paused, took a deep breath, and then cleared his throat. “So.I was thinking you might want to come sit with me? ...and my friends. ...but maybe not as friends. Unless I am completely misreading all of this-” he made a sweeping gesture to encompass the space between them. “In which case I’m going to. You know. Crawl into a hole and die.”  

“...Oh.” Shiro said softly, shocked. “No.”

Lance’s face fell. “Ah. Okay. Well. That’s-”

“Oh! No! I don’t mean no to you. I mean I did. But. Not no. I mean.” Shiro waved his hands frantically, heedless of the people turning to look and Madam Pince’s pursed lipped glare. Lance’s eyebrows went up.

“I’m confused.”

Shiro made a helpless noise then sighed. “Yes. I’m saying yes. And that you don’t need to crawl into any holes.”

Lance didn’t say anything for a beat and then he smiled, relieved and pleased. “Great! I’m...yeah. Good. Should we…?”

He let it hang as he looked around, brow furrowing. Shiro looked too, realized they were still the center of attention, and slid down in his chair a little bit, embarrassed. One of the big problems with Hogwarts was the lack of privacy; even finding a corner to sneak kisses or touches in was an exercise in frustration (or so he’d heard from Keith and Allura, not that he’d ever asked or had wanted to know). And most everyone would know everything about everyone else within the week.

Something brushed his hand; he almost jumped in surprise, heart leaping up into his throat, but he managed to keep a lid on his first panicked response. It was just Lance’s hand, long fingers touching his own lightly, almost hesitantly. Shiro looked over at him, caught the twin spots of pink on his cheeks, then pushed his hand closer, let their fingers brush and then tangle while silently being thankful Lance was on the side with his real, flesh and blood, hand.

The phantom hand didn’t allow for any actual sensation and he would have hated to miss out on this warm touch.

\---

The feast was the most elaborate and over the top in years, a celebration of Hogwarts being rebuilt and all that such a thing represented. It was to honor all those lost, all the heroes who’d given everything, and the survivors and there were eyes on Shiro all night.

But he only had eyes for Lance, who sat so close their shoulders and thighs touched. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This won't be updated again until day 5 (Day 4 is an update of my Spideypool Shance fic) so. See you then.


End file.
